


Fireflies

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 08:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets Dean back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> For the tags challenge at hoodie_time. The chosen tag was "respiratory illness."

Dean comes out of the saloon into golden dust. Sheriff is leaning against the wall by the door like he owns the place. Maybe he does. He holds court here, right enough. Sunset edges his cream white duster.

He holds his battered pewter mug to Dean. Dean takes a swig. It’s not beer. It’s not whiskey. It’s like honey that burns a man’s throat.

“Ride with me,” says Sheriff.

  
There are fireflies.

It’s the summer Dean’s ten and they’re at Pastor Jim’s. They’re staying all June. Dad calls every other day when he can. Sometimes he’s busy and he can’t. Sammy splashes in the creek in the hot afternoons and rainy days Pastor Jim teaches Dean how to fish and at night there are fireflies.

Sammy’s not allowed to go out after dark but Dean can if he stays in the garden. Pastor Jim showed him where the salt lines are, in plastic pipes all round the lawn. Dean carries the knife Dad gave him in his belt. He’s always ready, because even where there are salt lines something might come out of the dark, something might try to break into the house and get Sammy. But Dad said here was safe and Pastor Jim knows things, he’s one of the grownups who’s smart, who understands the real stuff.

So Dean keeps the knife in his belt and he crouches down by a plant with big flowers. Peonies, Pastor Jim says they’re called. Sammy likes them because they have ants and Sammy likes ants. There’s a firefly, right there on the leaf, flashing its butt in morse code. Dean reaches out both hands, slow and careful like when he’s drawing an arrow back on the string or pulling a trigger, and cups them around the firefly. Green light comes and goes through his fingers and the bug’s feet tickle on his palm. He walks back through the side door and up the stairs, careful so he won’t trip or bump something and squash his hands together.

Sammy’s still awake. Dean sits on the bed beside him.

“Look, Sammy,” he says, and he opens his hands. The firefly stays still for a moment and then takes off towards the ceiling, blinking steadily.

“It’s the amaaazing flying nightlight!” says Dean, and Sammy giggles.

There are fireflies.

The breeze flows steady and cool. The fireflies keep pace with the horses. Some of them settle on bridles or shoulders; there’s one on Sheriff’s hat. Dean’s riding beside Sheriff, easy, like he belongs.

“I’m thinking I might stay,” he says.

Sheriff tilts his hat a bit to look at Dean. Sheriff looks young but he’s old. He’s been riding on this mountain since anyone can remember.

“You’re a fine shot and a fine man, Winchester. You choose to ride with us, you could be a fine deputy.”

That sounds right. This is where Dean’s supposed to be, riding. But there’s something nagging at the back of his mind, something he should remember. Some reason why he can’t.

“I can’t stay because I’m sick,” Dean says. That sounds right, but that’s not it. The fireflies are so close he could catch one. Bring it back. He should remember to bring one back.

“Air’s good in the mountains,” says the Sheriff. “The Folk in these parts don’t get sick. I think you’ll find if you stay your health takes a turn for the better.”

And it’s true, Dean thinks. He can breathe.

He wakes up coughing.

Sam glares at him. Sam’s driving because he said Dean had a fever. Dean doesn’t really have a fever, it’s just that the air is too heavy around here. It presses on his ribs. They should go some place where the air is lighter. Some place where he and Sam wouldn’t keep being pressed back to hell and where it will be easy for them to breathe.

“Are we going to the mountains?” Dean asks. He manages the whole sentence without coughing. Sam seemingly isn’t impressed, because he takes his hand off the wheel with a worried frown and feels Dean’s forehead.

“Dude, Illinois, poltergeist, remember? Not exactly mountainous. And right now we’re headed for the next motel. Your fever’s up.”

“You should keep your eyes on the road,” Dean says, because when they get to the mountains and start climbing up and down, with switchbacks and cliffs and maybe eagles swooping in on the light air, Sam’s going to need to pay attention. None of this using one hand to feel up his brother and frowning at imaginary fevers instead of keeping his eyes on the road.

“Stop criticizing my driving and go back to sleep,” Sam says, and Dean shuts up. The heavy air blows in the windows and he coughs. Sam takes his eyes off the road again to hand him a bottle of water, but it tastes flat and plasticy and Dean stops after a sip.

The motel Sam stops at isn’t really a motel. It’s one of those places with little cabins. It’s overpriced, but this is a touristy region and Sam insists they stay without looking further. Dean tells him he’s feeling better but Sam doesn’t believe him, even though Dean hasn’t coughed since they stopped.

Dean _is_ feeling better. It’s better here. There are pines around the cabin and the ground slopes down from it and there’s a breeze to lighten the air. A mulched path runs through the pines towards the lake, wide enough to ride two abreast. There’s a firefly or two, flickering in and out among the trees. Dean dozes off on an Adirondack chair to the faint creak of bridle and saddle. The last of the fever is gone by morning, though he’s still muffling the occasional cough.

They take care of the poltergeist. They fail to make progress on the “How to de-God your angelic ex-friend” thing. They hunt a caipora. Dean coughs in the mornings. During the long drives the air feels dense in his lungs. He lets Sam take the wheel more and more often. It’s better at night, when he’s riding. Sam worries and makes Dean stop at a free clinic in Des Moines. They don’t find anything wrong.

  
Sheriff’s at odds with his wife again. Titania’s a beautiful woman, but they quarrel something fierce, and this time she’s walked out the door, taken up with some young foreigner fresh out from the cities. Sheriff rides harder than most times and the host falls back. Dean rides beside him.

Sheriff draws up at a massive beech. He dismounts, so Dean does, too. Sheriff takes the knife from his boot, carves something on the tree. He cuts his own arm, brushes blood across the carving, holds out the knife to Dean. Dean makes a shallow cut on the side of his hand. Sheriff smears Dean’s blood over his own, takes a horn from his duster pocket and blows. There’s scuffling in the leaves and sheriff’s pack comes baying up, dappled white with red ears.

“What are we doing?” Dean asks.

“Hunting,” Sheriff says.

“Hunting what?” says Dean. The dogs are milling around, sniffing at his boots.

“Black bear and white deer,” says Sheriff, and smiles at him, sharp teeth.

“Can Sam come?” Dean asks. Hunting’s not something he wants to do without Sam. But it’s after dark. Sammy isn’t allowed. If Dean can catch a firefly he could bring it back to show him.

“Sam cannot ride in my mountains,” Sheriff says.

Dean’s starting to get angry.

“Why the hell not?” he asks. “Sam’s a good hunter. The best.”

“Blood of a demon. Vacant shell of an angel. You’re my deputy, not his.”

Well, yeah. If anyone is anyone’s deputy back there, Sam is Dean’s. Driver picks the music. Deputy shuts his cakehole. But that’s not the point.

“Sam’s the one has my back,” Dean says. “I hunt with Sam. You don’t accept that, you can take your black bear and white deer and shove them.”

Sheriff sneers.

“You would leave my hunt for a man of gristle and bone?” he asks. “For a man who made no bid to claim you when you rode with us first? You can’t even breathe his air any more.”

“I’m going back,” says Dean.

“Very well,” says Sheriff. “For a little while. See how you like it.” He gathers the reins of Dean’s horse and rides away.

Dean wakes up coughing.

The hooves are pounding his head and tearing into his chest. They’ve shut him up somewhere and the colors are twisted and unnatural. They’re making him sick. Sam is there. Sam is pulling him up and out the door. Maybe he’s taking him to the mountains so he can breathe. But the place outside the door is flat black and grey, not rock, something acrid and dead. Dean can feel where there would be root and blade and tree but everything is buried, suffocated.

“You’ve got to take me to the mountains,” he says to Sam.

“We’re going to the hospital,” Sam says. “Come on, Dean, we’ve just got to get you to the car.”

Dean coughs again and there are shimmering drops of dark red on his hand. At least it’s a real color.

“This is blood,” Dean says. “I’m coughing mortal blood.”

“You coughing blood is why we’re going to the fucking hospital,” says Sam. He sounds grouchy, but when he pulls Dean’s arm over his should and down across his chest Dean can feel his heartbeat, jumping quick with fear.

  
The hospital is all wrong. The floors are endless and slippery, and it’s white, no brown, no green. Dean feels muffled in shiny glare. Sam sits by his bed. He talks to doctors in white coats and nurses in blue scrubs and to Bobby endlessly on his phone. People talk to Dean but the words don’t register, he’s trying to find a way past the maze of white walls to get to the mountains. The only real color in the place is in the red drops on the white sheets, though when the cough gets worse and the red gets stronger Dean chokes and it’s even harder to breathe. The doctor who comes back most often takes Sam’s arm and draws him aside and talks to him for a long time in an aggravating whisper.

“IT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB,” Sam’s shouting suddenly, “IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT YOU DO YOUR FUCKING JOB?” He kicks over one of those little metal hospital carts with a clatter that goes through Dean like the striking of hooves. The doctor whispers again, louder, and this time Dean can hear “security.” Sam mutters some kind of apology. The doctor leaves. Sam comes and sits by Dean’s bed. He looks exhausted.

“They can’t figure it out, Dean. They think it’s TB, but the tests come back negative, the meds don’t do a damn thing, your X-rays are clear. This has to be our kind of thing, but there’s nothing. No hex bags, no curse, no spirits. You’re _dying_ , Dean, of some undetectable wasting disease. And no one’s got any idea, I’ve got NO FUCKING CLUE.” Sam’s shouting again. Security’s going to come and kick him out.

“I shouldn’t have sassed the Sheriff,” says Dean. He can’t remember what it had been about, but Sheriff had been angry, and now Sam’s upset. “Sorry.”

Sam snorts, looking calmer, so maybe Dean said the right thing.

“Yeah, I’m sure it was your delirious Western fantasy did the damage,” he says.

“I hate this place,” says Dean. “I vote we leave. Break me out of here, Sammy.”

“All right,” says Sam. “All right. They’re not doing any good here anyway. We’ll go to Bobby’s. This _has_ to be supernatural. Bobby and I will hit the books and get you better. There’s got to be an answer. You’ll be fine.”

Dean nods. He’ll be fine once he’s out of this shiny white box, once he finds the path back to the mountains.

At Bobby’s, Sam reads endlessly. Pages tear and spines crack. After dark the laptop screen lights his face with a corpselike glow. Then he’ll get up, charge around the room, blundering and dangerous as a bear in a cage, tear at the mattress and bedding as though a hex bag will have appeared between one night and the next.

Dean coughs. More blood. Sam wipes it up and brings him water and then sits back down at the desk he’s dragged next to the bed. He doesn’t open the laptop tonight or go back to his book. He leans his head on his hands and mutters. Dean thinks he’s talking to himself, till Sam’s voice breaks on “Castiel.” Dean could’ve told him that wouldn’t work.

The worst are the times Sam sits down by Dean and just looks at him. His mouth sets and his chest heaves like he’s been running, like he’s the one who can’t breathe.

Dean waits out the waking hours and rides farther and farther through the long dreams. It’s easy, from here, getting to the mountains. Sam doesn’t have as much time for reading now. He has to do messy stuff with blood and sponge baths, and then with vomit and bedpans. Bobby tries to help. Sam snarls at him like an animal. Dean thinks he should get on with dying before those two kill each other.

There’s been so much blood, but now it’s just phlegm, boiling in his chest. He coughs. Sam holds him up, propped against his chest. Sam’s gotten so big.

“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean says. “Gotta go. I’ll bring you a firefly.”

“Asshole,” says Sam. His voice sounds funny. “You can’t die on me and then apologize with a bioluminescent insect.”

“Keep meaning to bring one back. Keep forgetting.”

“You brought me one. I remember. At Pastor Jim’s. The amaaazing flying nightlight.” Sam chuckles. It strangles in his throat. His face drops against the top of Dean’s head. His breath in Dean’s hair feels nice. Dean’s so cold.

“You can’t ride with me,” Dean says. “They won’t let you into the mountains.”

“I know,” says Sam, muffled against Dean’s hair. “It’s OK, Dean. You go ahead.”

“They won’t let you ride with me,” Dean repeats, “But we could meet up. Have a beer. At the saloon. You meet up with me there, Sam. At Oberon’s.” Because surely Sam’s allowed to go that far.

“OK,” says Sam. Then he sits straight up, jarring Dean against his chest, and his hand fastens on Dean’s wrist like a vise.

“Wait,” he says. “Oberon’s?”

Dean blinks at him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, that’s not what it’s called, but everyone calls it that. It’s his. Whole town belongs to Sheriff. The town and the mountains.”

Sam’s face is suddenly lit up, jagged with hope. He begins gathering pillows feverishly, propping Dean against them.

“Wait here,” he says. Like Dean is about to go for a stroll in the salvage yard. “I’ve got to talk to Bobby. Got to get some dreamroot. This is it, this has to be it. Don’t die on me, OK? You die on me before I can fix this, I’m going to kill you.”

“All right, all right,” says Dean. Sam stands for a moment longer, looking at him with an odd, fond smile tugging at his lips.

“You and your crazy fucking Western fetish,” he says. Then,“ _Wait_ ,” again, and now he sounds ten times Mariner than Dad. He turns abruptly and Dean hears him clattering down the stairs, shouting “Bobby!”

Dean’s tired. Sam will tell him what it’s about when he gets back. Dean leans back against the pillows and closes his eyes. He rides in the mountains, hunting. Black bear and white deer.

They’re higher up now. The trees have thinned to the occasional twisted pine. The stars are coming out overhead like fireflies. The horses are lathered and laboring, but Dean draws breath after breath of air. He has to ride carefully, not fall behind. His wrist is bound to Sheriff’s with red thread.

They round a bend. There’s a boulder by the trail there, and someone beside it. Sam. Sheriff stops his horse stock still, so Dean does, too. There’s huffing and jingling of bridles. The horses don’t see anything to see here.

Sam looms tall and solid as the rock, not looking at Dean. Dean can see his hands shake, though.

“Give him back,” Sam says. “I’m here. I’m claiming him.”

“You cannot ride here,” says Sheriff. “Your blood is impure. You are an empty vessel, disintegrating. You have no claim.”

“Give him back,” says Sam again. Sheriff shrugs, wind lifting his duster.

“He rides with us, now,” he says. “The time to claim him was when we first took him. Where were you then?”

“In a cage,” says Sam. “Give him back.” Then he says, “Dean.”

Dean looks at Sam, the circles under his eyes and his angry bulk and this stupid claiming thing, and who the hell does Sam think he is, anyway? Then he glances at Sheriff’s smile and for a moment there’s weight on his chest and blood and phlegm curdling his lungs. He feels Sam propping him up and Sam’s breath in his hair. Sees Sammy, eyes tracking a firefly.

“Great,” says Dean. “Another cocky bastard thinks we would make better choices without lungs.” He twists his wrist and the red thread snaps. Sam grabs at his arm. He pulls and they fall.

Dean lands on top of Sam and for a chaotic moment he can feel himself fraying. He scrabbles at Sam with blunt claws, crashes down on him in a ton of water, slithers in cold coils out of his grasp, flares into tattered flames. He’s crushed between the hot hammering of Sam’s heart and Oberon’s cold gaze. Then Sam says, “Dean,” again and the world steadies. Sam’s arm tightens for a long moment. Then he lets Dean go. Dean stands up.

“I’m going,” he says.

“Gristle and bone,” says Oberon. “Gristle and bone and better late than never, that is all he is. Always the weight that pulls his brothers down. Good luck to you, with him at your back.”

“Told you once before,” says Dean, and oh, yes, he remembers now. “I hunt with Sam.”

Oberon’s face twists white with rage. The black horse strikes out and iron pain explodes in Dean’s chest.

He’s lying on wooden boards, next to a bed. A messy swag of blankets trails down to the floor by his hand. Something sharp and heavy punches his chest. Hooves? Then Sam, huge and wild-eyed, leans over and fucking kisses him.

Dean shoves him off.

“What the bloody hell, Sam?” he says.

Sam is crying. Full on snot and tears. This is it, Dean thinks. Sam’s finally lost it.

“You weren’t breathing,” Sam says “Dean? Are you OK? Can you breathe?”

“Not when you’re breaking my ribs and then _kissing_ me, you giant freak,” says Dean.

Sam sits back and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. He lets out a huge, shaky, half-laughing sigh.

“I was giving you mouth-to-mouth,” he says. “I was resuscitating you. Because you weren’t breathing.”

Oh. That makes a bit more sense. Hunt must have gone south. Sam overreacts sometimes.

“Why wasn’t I breathing?” Dean asks. “And is the whatever –it-is dead?” He sits up. He feels OK. His ribs are sore, where Sam about caved them in with his CPR stunt, but he’s breathing just fine. There doesn’t seem to be a monster in the room.

Sam laughs shakily.

“Would you believe you got kicked in the chest by the Faerie King’s horse in a dream?” he asks.

No, Dean wouldn’t. Except things are filtering back. Flicker of fireflies. Pounding hooves. A searing taste of alcohol and honey. Sam’s mortal weight pulling him off his horse.

“Oberon,” he says.

Sam nods. “They tried to take you back,” he says. “But they don’t get to have you.”

“Guess they didn’t count on souled you being a possessive bitch,” says Dean. “Just so we’re clear, you do not own my car, my jacket, or me.”

“Could’ve let you ride on by with Sheriff Sexy and kept the jacket and the car,” says Sam.

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to,” says Dean. The red thread had snapped with hardly a twist.

Sam’s face is still obstinate with residual panic under the awkward lightness he’s putting on. He’d pulled Dean back, held him steady and let him go. So it’s Dean’s turn to hang on. He grabs Sam and pulls him in. Sam hugs him back. His hair is greasy, he’s still got snot on his face, and he’s overdue for a shower.

Gristle and bone. Muscle and sweat and tears. Dean’s always going to choose this.

**Author's Note:**

> So there was an occasion when my family was chatting away over some carpentry project and my father mentioned a staple gun and a few minutes later my brother said, "Speaking of Stalin . . . " and we looked at him like he'd gone crazy and said, "What?" And he said, "You know. Staple gun, staple crop, wheat, famine, Stalin." Something similar seems to have happened here, in that my train of thought went something like, "Respiratory illness, consumption, Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci, faeries." This doesn't really bear any resemblance to Keats's take, or to any other faerie lore, except in tiny bits and pieces. And combining it with a Western fetish was Dean's idea. I have no idea if any of it works.


End file.
